Saving Brin
by Jondy
Summary: In Manticore, Max convinces Brin that being saved may not be so terrible...


Saving Brin  
By Jondy 11.6.01  
Setting: After AJBAC, Max is in Manticore, but hasn't yet given in, and she talks to her sister...  
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. I own nothing. Nothing at all. And I am making zilch off this story. If I was making money off this, would I be wasting my time blabbing uselessly like I am now?  
Author's notes: This is my first story, so review please please pretty please with a cherry on top!  
```````````  
The room was dark. A sliver of moonlight shone in through the window, and it was because of that light that Max could see the fuzzy shape sitting, like a statue, on the hard bed next to hers.  
"Brin?" Max tried to get her eyes to focus. She was still groggy from all the drugs they had pumped her with - but Zack would be proud: they hadn't broken her yet, not even after two weeks of continual brainwashing sessions, experiments, nameless drugs being injected into her, and pain.  
The figure on the bed next to her moved slightly, their long black hair swaying slightly with the movement.  
"X-5734," the figure said - Brin's barcode. So it was her, thought Max.  
"Why aren't you called Brin any more?" Max asked, her voice smaller than usual. She was tired - a strange sensation for her. Her eyesight was clearing now, and she could see that the room was full of beds, but all were empty apart from her and Brin's. Brin looked stoic, as usual, but Max thought she saw something like sadness flicker across her dark eyes. Brin caught her staring and turned her head away.  
"I'm a soldier. Soldiers don't need names. I am X-5734."  
Max could remember how many times Lydecker had drilled those messages into their heads. She ignored what Brin had said, and asked another question.  
"Are all the other X-5s on assignment?"  
Brin jerked her head up, almost as if she thought that Max shouldn't have been able to work things out on her own, when she appeared so tired and groggy and delicate, with bruises on her arms and face, and small abrasions all along the insides on her arms.  
"Yes," Brin answered curtly, and lay down on her bed, not getting under the cover, just like when they were little.  
"I'm sorry, Brin." Max's voice carried across the silent room. Brin looked, and saw that Max was crying silently, tears running down her face. Brin started to reach out to her little sister, but stopped herself. Max was a traitor. Max wasn't yet turned, so she was still a threat to Manticore. But looking at her sister, pale and worried-looking, brown curls messy, Brin didn't think that Max looked like a threat. She looked like the little sister Brin had once known, before the escape changed everything.  
"I'm sorry I didn't save you. It was my fault that we brought you back. Zack didn't want to, it wasn't his fault, you can't blame him, it was me, I'm sorry-," Max was rambling now, and it wasn't just the drugs. She'd been wanting to tell Brin these things, but before now, she hadn't seen Brin at Manticore. Or perhaps she didn't just remember. Max didn't know, and was too tired to think about it just now.  
"You brought me home." Brin's voice pulled her up short. It was carefully modulated, no emotion showing through, the voice of the perfect soldier.  
Max saw Brin turn her face towards her through her tears. It was blank and expressionless.  
"I'm grateful to you for bringing me back to Manticore. I was born to be a soldier, and when I was on the outside I was denying it." Brin noted that Max started to cry harder at that, and wondered why.   
Brin lay back on her bed, and stared at the ceiling. She heard Max stop crying, and say, one last time-  
"I'm sorry big sister. I'll save you, don't worry."   
Brin lay awake for awhile, wondering, before finally falling off to sleep alongside her sister.  
````````````  
"Do you think people on the outside look the same as us?" Max asked, late one night, in the barracks in Manticore. Next to her, Jondy laughed, and slung an arm around her neck.  
"I bet they'll think we're really ugly," she giggled. Brin and Tinga laughed as well, moving closer together on the bed.  
Max shoved her playfully, and giggled as well. Sometimes Brin envied what Max and Jondy had together. They were best friends, almost like twins, sisters who didn't have to sleep, who could talk all night and not feel tired. Brin and Tinga and Syl and Ben always fell asleep before the sun rose.  
"What if people are afraid of us?" Brin said in a whisper, so that Tinga and Max and Jondy had to lean in to hear, even with their special genetically engineered ultra-sensitive hearing. "What if they try to hurt us?"  
Max, Jondy and Tinga looked grave and serious for a moment, two pairs of dark eyes and one of blue peering at her through the darkness.  
"Will the blue lady save us?" Jondy asked, a question they had all been wondering for some time now. Everyone was starting to stop believing, perhaps even Ben. She hadn't protected them so many times now, the children were starting to wonder if she really cared about them at all.  
"I don't think so," Tinga said sadly, and ran a hand through her close-cropped hair. She was always doing that.  
"Don't worry," said Max, her eyes looking much older than her nine and a half years. She put her right arm, the one that wasn't wrapped around Jondy's shoulders, around Brin. Brin stiffened, but then relaxed. They had all been on edge lately. When Zack was especially worried, like he was now, his brothers and sisters started to worry. Even the Colonel had seemed on edge lately, yelling more, giving out harder punishments, pushing them harder during training, and still not being pleased with anything. Brin knew that all of her brothers and sisters were unhappy, in their hearts. It made Brin long even more for whatever was outside the wall of Manticore.  
"I'll save you," said Max, to her three sisters. And Brin believed that she would, if she could.  
```````````  
Lying awake, with her sister next to her, Brin thought that perhaps being saved from Manticore wouldn't be so terrible.  



End file.
